Standing for nothing has the obvious appeal of making you impossible to pin down. There’s something very chic about smoking a cigarette outside a bar and being all like whatever. You’re playing a game of hide-and-seek with life, and you’re hiding.

everything is sexy and no one is horny.

In this process, the process of seeking and telling the truth, having values and goals, and taking a stand for something, we’re bound to fail, to fall short, and to make mistakes. This is also hard. Our culture simultaneously demands both perfection and apology, but is notoriously unforgiving.

To put it succinctly: when you take an ironic, negative, or numb attitude to everything, you are by definition not on the line for solutions, and when you stop looking for solutions, you lose all agency and will in your life.

we should heed the words of British psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott:

“It is a joy to be hidden, and a disaster not to be found.”

We all know that life does not hand out bouquets. Flowers do not just appear in the world. The same is true for a life of meaning. Both are grown, over time, from the tiniest seeds. You have to cultivate meaning in your life. You need to do the hard work of tilling the soil and nurturing the seeds. No one can do it for you. Grow your own flowers... See more

It’s not hard to see where the pervasive numbness comes in from here, as a sort of sinister phase two. The opposite of love is not hate, but apathy. I hope it’s obvious why this is a problem, but maybe you’re still thinking so what. To put it succinctly: when you take an ironic, negative, or numb attitude to everything, you are by definition not on... See more

there’s a real lack of palpable ambition and vitality these days, a stunning lack of life force in the world

Life has gotten very chaotic incredibly quickly. It has become increasingly difficult to parse anything from the static. People started coping with this lack of meaning through a kind of ironic detachment (which is very much still around), but it has matured into a pervasive cultural apathy, a permeating numbness. This isn’t nihilism per se. (Even... See more